Prosecutors: Man shot gun outside Wilson Red Line station

Marcus Dixon has been charged with shooting near an Uptown L stop. (Chicago Police Dept.)

Mitch SmithTribune reporter

A Joliet man is accused of firing a handgun outside an Uptown ‘L’ station on Thursday evening before getting on a CTA bus and stowing the weapon under his seat.

Prosecutors said Marcus M. Dixon, 22, was standing at the vestibule entrance to the Wilson Red Line station, 1107 W. Wilson Ave., when he fired the gun three times. A witness told officers he heard one shot and then saw Dixon fire twice more in a downward direction.

The witness called police, described Dixon’s clothing and said he saw the shooter board a southbound Broadway bus. Officers pulled the bus over at Broadway and Sheridan in the Lakeview neighborhood just before 6:45 p.m. They found Dixon in the rear of the bus with a semi-automatic pistol beneath his seat. The gun, which police said had a defaced serial number, was loaded with 11 live rounds.

Dixon, of the 300 block of North Broadway in Joliet, faces a felony charge of reckless discharge of a firearm. Prosecutors said Dixon was sentenced to three years in prison for a 2010 attempted residential burglary and had received probation in a robbery case.

In bond court Saturday, Cook County Associate Judge Donald Panarese Jr. ordered Dixon held on $400,000 bail. He will return to court Thursday.